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Detail

The 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study (also known as WERS6) is the sixth survey in a series of national surveys of employment relations at the workplace level.

Further information on the 2011 study including methodological details can be found on the WERs 2011 website.

It contains data from a representative sample of 2,680 British workplaces collected from:

Key outputs and dates

2011 WERS data made available to the public through the UK Data Archive

February 2013

Publication of the book ‘Employment relations in the shadow of recession: findings from the 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study’ (ISBN 978-1-137-27576-9, Palgrave Macmillan)

25 November 2013

Design of the 2011 WERS

At each workplace, an interview was conducted with the most senior manager responsible for employment relations and personnel issues. A self-completion questionnaire was distributed before the interview to collect information on the basic characteristics of the workforce, and a second questionnaire was given to all trading sector workplaces at the end of the interview to collect data on financial performance.

At workplaces with worker representatives, the manager was asked for consent to interview one trade union employee representative and one non-trade union representative.

Also with the manager’s consent, self-completion questionnaires were distributed to a randomly selected representative sample of up to 25 employees.

The 2011 WERS covers key aspects of employment relations, including:

establishment and organisational characteristics

management of employment relations

recruitment and training

information, consultation and communication

employee representation

payment systems and pay determination

collective disputes and procedures

redundancies, grievance and discipline

equal opportunities

work-life balance and well-being

health and safety

flexibility and performance

business strategy and workplace change

employee engagement and job satisfaction

2011 WERS instruments

There are 5 instruments in total, all of which are available to download:

Employee profile questionnaire (EPQ) – self-completion questionnaire given to the manager respondent prior to the interview

Management questionnaire (MQ) – face-to-face interview with the most senior manager responsible for staff and employment relations at the workplace

Worker representative questionnaire (WRQ) – face-to-face or telephone interview with the most senior representative of the largest recognised (or if none present, non-recognised) trade-union and most senior non-union representative at the workplace

Survey of employees questionnaire (SEQ) – self-completion questionnaire distributed to up to 25 employees in the workplace

Report on the 2011 WERS consultation exercise

At the preliminary stages of the 2011 WERS, the sponsors conducted a consultation on the content of the next survey. The consultation report was published in August 2010 and is available to download.